I may have mentioned to those unfortunate enough to know me or be in at least ear shot when I'm on the good old soap box, but what is better than doing a job that you love doing?
Simple answer. Nothing is better.............. or is it?
Well I may have a different view after our recent half term football camp.
Things were a little different than usual for this camp . Normally we use a local school and play on grass but due to the weather of late, we took the decision to use a 4g surface at the newly opened Great Sankey Neighbourhood Hub. So some big plus points for us as we could guarantee the camp being on and no one got muddy.
What we try to aim for at the camps is for the kids to build confidence and simply Enjoy Football. We normally have kids coming along at varying ages and stages in the playing spectrum, some are older but have only just started out and some who are younger have been playing for years.. But what never ceases to amaze me is no matter what ability they have, they are all eager to learn something and what follows is that I then learn from them. .
Whilst we have a good number of regular attendees, we normally get some children who are coming for the first time. But no matter whether it's the first time or not, it is important to us that they all take something away with them that they'll remember and hopefully use in future play. Maybe a little trick, side step, swerve, shot, tackle or just general positioning on the field but most of all I hope they'll take away the feeling that football is fun.
During this recent camp, I noticed a few of those things along those lines and in particular from one of our regulars'. During the mini tournament games we have, he kept drifting towards the back post whilst in attacking play. This was exciting to see as this is something we have been coaching over the last few camps during the sessions we do on attacking and finishing.
It was encouraging to see 2 of the players who had never met before, suddenly pairing up and becoming quite inseparable and what also pleased me immensely was that some of the older children, rather than take advantage of , age, height etc, looked after the younger ones which in turn gave them more confidence. What that also showed a degree of responsibly and leadership which from those so young, is a delight to see. There are many other examples and whilst I accept that they are not entirely of our doing, I believe that because our camps have a friendly and relaxed atmosphere we have had some influence. This in turn allows the children to express themselves and show exactly what they can do.
So, is there nothing better, than doing a job you love doing? Well I did think that but my view has certainly changed and I can honestly say that learning from the job you love doing makes the job you love doing better and I love what I do.
